How a bug report for cdrtfe should look like
Sorry, but a simple 'cdrtfe doesn't work' or 'With cdrtfe I cannot burn ...' is not sufficient.
I like to help and I want to improve cdrtfe. In order to do that, I need to know what's going on. However, I am not able to read your mind, nor am I willing to guess. So the most important thing is a detailed description.
Write clearly and be precise. Write in a way that can't be misinterpreted. Please differentiate
between actual facts ('I did this and then that happened') and speculations ('I think the reason
might be ...'). You may leave out speculations in your bug report, but please never leave out
facts.
A bug report should cover these questions:
What were you doing? or What did you want to achieve?
A short summary of what you were going to do, when things went wrong. cdrtfe has several
different projects. And some projects behave diffently depending on the disc type.
How did you do it?
This would be the detailed step-by-step instructions which lead to the error. This is so
important, because some errors are triggered by a certain order of actions.
What happened?
Describe the error or misbehaviour. If available, include the exact error message. Depending
on the error it may be useful to include the output of the commandline tools or the debug
log (see below).
Another important information is if you can reliably reproduce the error or if it is gone
after restarting cdrtfe or rebooting the computer.
What did you expect to happen?
Sometimes the program just behaves as designed but this intended behaviour is misinterpreted
as a bug, because the user just expected something totally different.
Summary
A bug report for cdrtfe should at least include the following:
- cdrtfe version and kind of installation (exe or msi setup, portable, zip, legacy)
- operating system
- detailed instructions to reproduce the error (see above)
- projects settings
- medium type
- error message
- special characteristics: e.g. installed cygwin environment
If applicable, further information are useful or necessary:
- the complete output from the output window, if the error is related to the commandline tools (cdrecord, mkisofs, ...)
- error log in case of a 'cdrtfe - application error'
- cdrtfe debug output (cdrtfe /debug)
Important: If you get an error in the commandline output, please make sure to send the detailed output. Set the option 'detailed output (-v)' in the dialog 'Settings', tab sheet 'cdrecord'.
You get the cdrtfe debug log by starting cdrtfe while the Shift key is pressed. Alternatively, the program can be started from the commandline prompt with the option /debug (cdrtfe /debug).